Russian hacking of the US election

didn't want this to get lost within the all-encompassing trump thread. it's incredible that this actually happened, so much distracting craziness in the election that it really hasn't received the spotlight that it should. i mean, c'mon, fucking russia directly meddled in and influenced the american election...call me naive but, yikes!

certainly deserves the attention now that the CIA has officially issued a statement:

Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says

American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

An extraordinary breach has emerged between President-elect Donald J. Trump and the national security establishment, with Mr. Trump mocking American intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the election on his behalf, and top Republicans vowing investigations into Kremlin activities.

Mr. Trump, in a statement issued by his transition team on Friday evening, expressed complete disbelief in the intelligence agencies’ assessments. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Mr. Trump’s team said, adding that the election was over and that it was time to “move on.”

Though Mr. Trump has wasted no time in antagonizing the agencies, to carry out priorities like combating terrorism and deterring cyberattacks he will have to rely on them for the sort of espionage activities and analysis that they spend more than $70 billion a year to perform.

At this point in a transition, a president-elect is usually delving into intelligence he has never before seen and learning about C.I.A. and National Security Agency abilities. But Mr. Trump, who has taken intelligence briefings only sporadically, is questioning not only analytic conclusions, but also their underlying facts.

“To have the president-elect of the United States simply reject the fact-based narrative that the intelligence community puts together because it conflicts with his a priori assumptions — wow,” said Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the N.S.A. and later the C.I.A. under President George W. Bush.

With the partisan emotions on both sides — Mr. Trump’s supporters see a plot to undermine his presidency, and Hillary Clinton’s supporters see a conspiracy to keep her from the presidency — the result is an environment in which even those basic facts become the basis for dispute.

some things have always gone on behind the scenes, this is incredibly brazen and scarier when you take into account trump's ego and how putin knows exactly how to stroke it and play him. this has global consequences, pretty damn relevant, i'd say.

This story may well be partially true but could just as easily be cover for increasing the funding for cyberwar in the US, enlarging it's scope, and intensifying it's operations as well as smearing wikileaks in the process. I doubt we'll ever know.

What we can say without a great deal of doubt, is that no one is about to rerun the election on the back of this. Trump will still be sitting on the throne.

no one is suggesting a reversal of election result. it's a big deal because it's the combination of it happening, for once, TO american (instead of BY america to someone else) coupled with trump's apparent disregard of evidence from his country's own intelligence services on the matter.